2011 Annual Seminar for Board and Committee Members

Lessons from the Foot and Mouth Disease Crisis:
Environment Protection and Food Safety



Han, Kyung Ho
Minister, Hoengsung Church
Representative,
Korea Christian Forum for Life and Agriculture



What is the foot and mouth disease?

The foot and mouth disease (FMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever for two or three days, followed by blisters inside the mouth and on the feet that may rupture and cause lameness. (quote from Wikipedia) Once animal infected by the FMD virus, it cannot be treated and even it is survived their productivity markedly decrease so that it can cause tremendous economic harm to the rural households. That is why the mass cull in the first stage of the outbreak of FMD is the top priority.

Outbreak of FMD and Stamping Out Infected Animals

The most recent FMD crisis started from Andong area in the last November. For it took quite a long time to turn out to be FMD after the report of the outbreak and went through the incubation period, the FMD viruses already spread to other areas such as Paju, Kangwon, Choongchung, and Kyungnam by trucks carrying feeds and night soil. As of March 7, when the FMD is relieved, 150,000 heads of cattle and 3,320,000 pigs were killed. For instance, in 1997, 3,850,000 in Taiwan and 6,000,000 in U.K were destroyed.

Cause of FMD

Globalized economy under the neo-liberalism made the scale of agriculture bigger and bigger. Through development of transportation and telecommunication, people can go to other countries easily and various kinds of seeds and diseases also cross the border. In Korea, because of improvement of the standard of living, the increase in meat consumption caused growth of the amount of meat production. The problem is that the farms want to increase productivity in a short period of time. Main cause of the FMD outbreak is so-called overpopulated ‘factory farm’. Another reason is the wrong feed for the cattle such as genetically modified corn and assorted feed with antibiotic, growth hormone shot, and all sorts of chemical additives. In addition, human being’s desire for meat diet and money raised today’s FMD crisis.

 

FMD and its Side Effect

As a result of the FMD crisis, one more zooanthroponosis, disease that can occur in both human being and livestock broke out. HIV/AIDS and mad cow disease are well known zooanthroponosis in the world. Many kinds of animal viruses are still trying to go inside the human body. Secondary environment pollution because of the mass cull of the diseased cattle is another severe problem of FMD crisis. Contaminating the underground water and the source water because of leachate and decomposition of carcass are most concerned. In other part of society, people worry about animal’s right. In an Old Testament era, animals were regarded as holy creatures for worship and the vegetarian diet was recommended. According to Animals Protection Act, we have an obligation to minimize and relieve animal’s pain if it has well-developed nervous system and can feel pain.

Christian’s Confession of Faith on the FMD Crisis

The essential of agriculture is life, but modern society makes it change into anti-life. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers lead to convenient production and increase in the output, however, at the same time, they killed all kinds of lives like producers, crops, lands, and consumers. Convenience and abundance cost death of lives. The FMD crisis is the Lord’s warning to human being’s excessive greed. Bible shows that the infectious diseases are related with the God’s judgment.

Role of Church and Christian Association

Church has to change its individual-oriented approach food problems into life-oriented. Spiritual and physical health cannot be concerned separately. It can be clearly found out from the FMD crisis that food safety is social problems beyond individual matters. Food safety is about life and society. It has to be every church's and christian association's mission.

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Seoul YWCA's Annual Seminar for Board Members and Committee Members wes held on March 29. It is for Seoul YWCA's leaders to develop their leadership and professionalism. In this seminar, they learned about the foot and mouth disease and thought of Seoul YWCA's role for the better future. Seoul YWCA will be striving for clean and safe earth.